Motorbike Shops

(PICTURE: Huyen's sister's bike getting fixed-up at the shop.)

All over Vietnam are motorbike shops. Near our house we have our local guy who we always bring our bikes to whether we need air in the tires or something more substantial done to our bikes. This past week my friend Jed and his wife Lena have been visiting so before they came we took our bikes to the shop to get fixed-up.

First off, I should say that I'm using the term "our" bikes very loosely. Currently we have two bikes: Huyen's and Huyen's sister's bike. Huyen's sister's bike is her spare bike and has seen its better days. When we dropped the bike off at the shop, we told our repair guy to look over the bike and to specifically fix the brakes and signal lights. When we came back a couple of hours later, the bike was half apart. One of the repair guys was basically blow torching the brakes while another was rewiring everything under, what could only be called, "the hood." As far as Huyen's bike, we just needed a few little repairs on it like putting in a new left turn signal.

Overall we had a few new lights put in, got new brakes, had some things tightened and also had air put in the tires. The total cost -- including labor -- was 350,000 VND or roughly $17.50. The repair guy worked on our bike for at least an hour. Can you imagine going to a car shop in America and getting new brakes and new lights for anything less than $1,000? I'm having specific flashbacks to my Jeep Grand Cherokee and having to replace the brakes in 2005 for a solid grand. Put this on the list of things I'm gonna miss about Vietnam.